C'mon CODOG... say or do something!

[Ganak]

This whole thread has been great. My highest compliments to CODOG for his leadership. We know it cannot happen all the time for the very good reasons CODOG spoke about, but this indepth communication appears to have done wonders for the morale on the forums.

[Raiderone]

I say take everything with a grain of salt.

Codog...Love the game. Had to stop playing once for two months
cause I'm addicted to it. But here I am again.

Ever see the Payton Manning commerical... when he's asking for autographs
or the Sienfeld show where he goes to the girls office and jears her back...

Wouldn't you just love to do that once....maybe even twice...

[Dane_McArdy]

Just take note about some of the things Codog is saying and doing.

First, he's doing much of this communication on his own, personal family time. And while he loves what he does, even the most dedicated person needs R and R.

Second, like he said, to communicate on this level, and this in depth, takes a lot of time. It's clear, he spends time writing out his posts, and getting it right. If all the dev's did this, the progress of the game would slow down in what gets done, like Codog said. Codog is only able to do this right now, because he isn't using work time.

I think the best thing that has come out of all this is a glimps into the the process. Hopefully, down the road when people feel Turbine is being to quite, they will remember, it's not that easy.

Here's to hope.

[ErgonomicCat]

Just take note about some of the things Codog is saying and doing.

First, he's doing much of this communication on his own, personal family time. And while he loves what he does, even the most dedicated person needs R and R.

Ab-so-lutely. My boss just quit his job because of this - he was working at 12:30 on Sunday nights. Ended up giving him high blood pressure and a hatred for life.

Looks like Codog doesn't overdo it - sometimes, you need to take the hit. Just not all the time.

Second, like he said, to communicate on this level, and this in depth, takes a lot of time. It's clear, he spends time writing out his posts, and getting it right. If all the dev's did this, the progress of the game would slow down in what gets done, like Codog said. Codog is only able to do this right now, because he isn't using work time.

I've been codog, in a much less public position. But I was in a situation where my emails and comments would be scrutinized and combed over. And a couple times, I didn't spend the extra 30 minutes re-re-reading my comments, and people seized on them, and it became a huge headache.

So yeah, either codog spends a lot of extra time rerereading it, which is a waste, or he posts off the cuff, and says some minor comment that gets blown all out of proportion....

Summary: Good job, codog! I know what you're going through, and we all appreciate it!

[Pellegro]

In reading the post where Codog said he was going to try and tackle the ranged issue by increasing the speed of missles, I got to thinking ...

What if, at least for player attacks on mobs, the "to hit" calculation just ignored everything that happened AFTER the arrow is launched. So the computer would just "simulate" a straight instant line to target, using target placement at time of arrow's launch.

You'd still have the animation play out, and even though it would at times look a little "off", at least we'd solve the meat of the problem being the to hit calc.

I mention doing it only for player vs. mob attacks (and not player v. player or mob v. player) since we twitchers still enjoy dodging incoming missles. But mobs don't intentionally dodge an incoming missle, and the "to hit" calculation already incorporates a moving target (I think ... right, in D&D pnp you get a roll that is the same whether your target is moving or not, right?).

It's essentially speeding up the arrows to be instantaneous, but then leaving hte animation at its current speed. So there's my 2 cents.

Cheers.

[DSL]

I've been codog, in a much less public position. But I was in a situation where my emails and comments would be scrutinized and combed over. And a couple times, I didn't spend the extra 30 minutes re-re-reading my comments, and people seized on them, and it became a huge headache.

So yeah, either codog spends a lot of extra time rerereading it, which is a waste, or he posts off the cuff, and says some minor comment that gets blown all out of proportion....

Summary: Good job, codog! I know what you're going through, and we all appreciate it!

I suspect that this is part of why more dev's don't post more often. I've often seen some of them throw a proverbial bone to the players here only to have their posts picked apart or each statement taken as a solemn vow from Turbine. I imagine it's quite frustrating, and discourages them from making the effort to post. I think we would all benefit if the dev's were able to feel that their posts were taken more "off-the record" (outside of more official threads like the WDA of course).

[Lorien_the_First_One]

First off, Best Dev Award goes to Codog! Great feed back, above and beyond!

I am not a programmer or anything but as to the "1.5 weapon fighting" due to slow animations, what about Melee Alacrity? We have an item that gives 10% speed increase to melee attacks, and doesn't seem to mess up the animations. Could this be added to the first TWF feat but at 2.5 or 5%, however the math works out(I ain't no mathamagician)? Just enough to give a bit of haste to TWF to bring it more in line with PnP.!

A great idea, the same could be looked at to fix the falcon/greataxe

[Borrigain]

All I can say is thank you Mrs Codog for giving the Mr. the time to create THE BEST game on the planet and the time to post for us.

There was even a time when the fanboi in me was starting to get worried that we were on the downslope. And that would have floored me. I would have been lost at sea.....rudderless. I have NEVER invested so much time in a game. And it's a good thing I was able to get the wife to play, otherwise my addiction probably would have cost me my marriage. Been playing DnD since 1980 and to have it in an interactive computer game was a childhood dream come true for me too.

Devs, you have no idea as players how reassuring it is to hear comments that alleviate our concerns. Heck, I have learned more about DDO combat physics in 1 week than I was able to discern in playing from day 1 of release. And to learn this makes me go "WOW! I had no idea they invested so heavily in game mechanics". It makes me love the game that much more. And adjust my play style accordingly

Anyway, I begin to ramble. Keep up the good work guys, and don't let the naysayers bring you down. They love the game too, they just don't express it so well sometimes .

Oh, here's an idea. Have Tolero or Q do like a "behind the scenes documentary" and send it to DDOcast or something. Let us see how crazy it is behind those doors and maybe that would help us better understand why we can't have everything we want "right now". And it would help us feel more attached to the Turbine team and our game. Just a thought.

You guys rock,
Borr.

[Codog]

I just finished reading this entire thread ( because you posted so much. Thanks a million btw Codog) and I was gonna ask you that very question. Can you speed the arrow up a bit? Let us know how the test works out if you can. And good luck

Do you want the good news or the good news first?

For you math teachers out there give this bonus problem to your students on their next test.

A nasty kobold appears in front of you 60m to the north. He is running east at a rate of 5m/s. If the kobold is 2m wide, how fast does your arrow have to be to hit the kobold if you are aiming and firing at his current position. Extra, extra credit! If you are moving 4.5m/s to the west at the same time, how fast must your projectile be to hit him?

If they get it right, let them know that they just solved a game systems design problem.

This problem is global across all weapons to varying degrees. This is why I believe some people are having more problems than others. Each bow, crossbow, etc... has the initial velocity of projectiles fired with that weapon stamped on it. The weapons I've been using to test with have a "muzzle velocity" of 120m/s. I tried some of the weapons that fire at 60m/s at some kobolds running perpendicular to me. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but Codog physics misses both targetted and untargetted. I adjusted my aim manually and figured out how much I needed to lead the monsters and smiled.

I went into our revision control system and found the checkin that changed these numbers. It turns out that the "muzzle velocity" of these weapons was researched and set to realistic worldly numbers a while back. So this is a real world simulator for if kobolds ever assault the world and all we have to fight them with recurve bows and crossbows. Sometimes the bug in the code isn't in the code at all.

I'll be putting in a fix for this soon. You'll likely see changes in module 6... maybe before that if we have the QA time. If the fix introduces big problems during testing, I'll let you all know the status. This might just be _one_ of the contributors to the bug in general and I can't promise that race conditions and synchronization issues might not crop up in live. However, I'll take baby steps forward over no progress any day. I don't want to get your hopes up too high, but the prelimary testing of this on my system looks promising.

So... that was the good news. Do you want the good news now?

Last night I checked into Mod 6 tree a fix for Greater TWF. The standing attack 1 will now have a left hand attack hook if you have greater TWF.

Cheers,

Codog

[MysticTheurge]

A nasty kobold appears in front of you 60m to the north. He is running east at a rate of 5m/s. If the kobold is 2m wide, how fast does your arrow have to be to hit the kobold if you are aiming and firing at his current position. Extra, extra credit! If you are moving 4.5m/s to the west at the same time, how fast must your projectile be to hit him?

If you're aiming at the center of the kobold you have about 1 meter's worth of movement before he escapes the target. Thus, at 5 meters per second, he'll move out of that range in 1/5th of a second. Thus your arrow needs to travel 60 meters in 1/5th of a second. Or it needs to be going 300 m/s.

For the extra extra credit, moving 4.5 meters per second west means the kobold's relative velocity is 9.5 meters per second. Thus it's 1/9.5 seconds before he escapes the target and your arrow needs to travel 60*9.5 or 570 m/s.

(Now to read the rest of the post)

[juniorpfactors]

codog when you say fix GTWF....is that also inferring the need of 19 dex to non Ranger class....vs the current 17 in game....need answer asap as my toon is about to hit 12 .....if its changing my point needs to go into Dex asap ....

or is this just the animations

[Codog]

codog when you say fix GTWF....is that also inferring the need of 19 dex to non Ranger class....vs the current 17 in game....need answer asap as my toon is about to hit 12 .....if its changing my point needs to go into Dex asap ....

or is this just the animations

This is just in the animations... as far as I'm aware, the dex requirement will remain the same.

Codog

[Kalanth]

Good data gathering. Thanks to your friend for helping you experiment around. I've been hopping into a few tavern brawls just using my bow and getting so slaughtered. If it were a drinking game and I had to slog one for every death or every time somebody tried hold person on me... I'd be on the floor now singing Tubthumper with a cheesy Spanish accent. (No comments from Phax please.) I've been playing and working on this game far too much. I don't tend to miss with ranged weapons much at all.

Having autocorrection on your target is going to be dodgey. Extapolating a position to fire based on interpolated positions and orientations might leave us right where we are now after me working on it for week and missing deadlines for module 6.

I'm working on a quick prototype solution for this that involves missile speeds. If I have a break through, I'll let you know.

Wish me luck,

Codog

I would definetly be interested in the results. The only reason that it bugs me to see the shot wide and behind is that even the most basic marksmen knows to shoot ahead of a moving target. If my old instructors in the military could see my character shoot the way he does they would freak.

[Missing_Minds]

codog when you say fix GTWF....is that also inferring the need of 19 dex to non Ranger class....vs the current 17 in game....need answer asap as my toon is about to hit 12 .....if its changing my point needs to go into Dex asap ....

or is this just the animations

I hope it doesn't change myself. They've left GTWF at 17 for a long while. I'd hope the superior would just be 19 when they release it. If they do change it to PnP rules, I'm going to need to pull a dex 3 tome to fix my twf barbarian.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

I <3 Codog 4 eva.

[Missing_Minds]

Take this weekend off for peats sake and have some fun with your family.

You have given ranged people, and twf a lot to look forward to and a lot of hope. Thanks for raising player morals. now take the weekend to raise your own moral up as well.

[MrCow]

If the kobold is 2m wide

Stop feeding Mocat! We can't have fat kobolds clogging sewer pipes everytime they get swept by the sewer tides!

I mean, why do you think we have to run The Pit so many times in the first place?

[Wulf_Ratbane]

This problem is global across all weapons to varying degrees. This is why I believe some people are having more problems than others. Each bow, crossbow, etc... has the initial velocity of projectiles fired with that weapon stamped on it. The weapons I've been using to test with have a "muzzle velocity" of 120m/s. I tried some of the weapons that fire at 60m/s at some kobolds running perpendicular to me. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but Codog physics misses both targetted and untargetted. I adjusted my aim manually and figured out how much I needed to lead the monsters and smiled.

This inspires a couple of questions/comments.

1) Is it possible, then, to give us some magic bows that have even better muzzle velocity? I mean, if all the physics is there, why not?

1a) Do composite bows have better muzzle velocity than regular bows? And how do crossbows compare?

2) If you're increasing muzzle velocity to help the players, please don't make it impossible to dodge projectiles. One of the things I really enjoy about ranged combat, at the moment, is that I can see incoming projectiles and get out of the way.

3) By the same token, it seems that some of the turreted mobs we fight would be well advised to do the Kobold Hop when they realize that they are taking incoming fire!

4) I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time worrying about how well we can hit targets moving at a tangent to us. It seems to me that 90% of the time, my targets are either standing still (and stuck so) or they are moving towards me in a straight line, in which case neither their speed nor my muzzle velocity would seem to matter much.

[binnsr]

This inspires a couple of questions/comments.

1) Is it possible, then, to give us some magic bows that have even better muzzle velocity? I mean, if all the physics is there, why not?

1a) Do composite bows have better muzzle velocity than regular bows? And how do crossbows compare?

2) If you're increasing muzzle velocity to help the players, please don't make it impossible to dodge projectiles. One of the things I really enjoy about ranged combat, at the moment, is that I can see incoming projectiles and get out of the way.

3) By the same token, it seems that some of the turreted mobs we fight would be well advised to do the Kobold Hop when they realize that they are taking incoming fire!

4) I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time worrying about how well we can hit targets moving at a tangent to us. It seems to me that 90% of the time, my targets are either standing still (and stuck so) or they are moving towards me in a straight line, in which case neither their speed nor my muzzle velocity would seem to matter much.

While we're talking physics, why do the mob archers (yes, I'm looking at you, desert archers and kobold throwers) get plunging fire while we're limited to LoS fire? Is this something that will be implemented for us in the future? I'd love to take a long indoor shot and see the arrow arc into the ceiling and miss the mob - similar to how we 'hide' from kobold fire at low levels now.. that is, in plain sight, but so that their artillery fire is splashing harmlessly off the ceiling between them and us..
A side effect of this could be the implementation of range - making short-bows better for inside work (less range = less of a possible arc) and longbows better for outdoors adventuring. The exception I could see would be crossbows - they don't really arc so much as have a flat, declining trajectory (much like a bullet) carrying the bolt quickly over a short distance but losing momentum fairly quickly..

[Dane_McArdy]

This inspires a couple of questions/comments.

1) Is it possible, then, to give us some magic bows that have even better muzzle velocity? I mean, if all the physics is there, why not?

1a) Do composite bows have better muzzle velocity than regular bows? And how do crossbows compare?

2) If you're increasing muzzle velocity to help the players, please don't make it impossible to dodge projectiles. One of the things I really enjoy about ranged combat, at the moment, is that I can see incoming projectiles and get out of the way.

3) By the same token, it seems that some of the turreted mobs we fight would be well advised to do the Kobold Hop when they realize that they are taking incoming fire!

4) I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time worrying about how well we can hit targets moving at a tangent to us. It seems to me that 90% of the time, my targets are either standing still (and stuck so) or they are moving towards me in a straight line, in which case neither their speed nor my muzzle velocity would seem to matter much.

There's a new dance going around!
You do a little hop to the left,
and then a hop to the right,
Shake your tail and shake your fist
fall to ground dead
Now your doing the Kobold Hop!

Don't just run ahead, doing the zerg!
That won't get you nuttin
But a belly full of arrows!
Come on now, do the Kobold Hop!

Hop hop, dogde those missiles!
Everybodies doing the Kobold Hop!